


Schoolyard romance

by allthingspieandhockey (SunMonTue)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: AU, M/M, Teachers in a high school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-06
Packaged: 2018-07-21 21:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7404595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunMonTue/pseuds/allthingspieandhockey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school Teacher AU where Jack is the history teacher and the hockey coach, and Bitty is the new home-ec teacher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Schoolyard romance

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own anything related to Check Please, Ngozi is the owner and creator who lets us play.

He’d first seen him in the summer holidays. Jack had turned up at the rink a little early, waiting for the team so he can run them through drills as part of the summer camp he’s running. The rink was open to the public and he’d seen him skating - twirling and jumping and then putting on bursts of speed to get across the ice to help a kid before they fell. Jack had no idea who the guy was - likely just a tourist passing through.

Except then he sees him buying groceries. A LOT of groceries and Jack just walks past him in the supermarket and wonders who needs  _that much butter???_

Then he sees him run past his house. Three days in a row. On the fourth day Jack is ready, because he feels like maybe he’s being stalked so he sort of follows at a distance, and then watches as the other man enters a house four blocks over and Jack realizes he’s being paranoid. But also this guy obviously isn’t a tourist. Or stalking him. And subsists on butter.

There’s a staff meeting two weeks before school starts and Jack has already been at the school teaching and coaching for a couple of years so he feels a little bored. Knew that the position for the Home Ec teacher had been filled but hadn’t really paid any attention to any names. But there he is, _Eric Bittle_ , the guy he’s been seeing around town, standing in the doorway to the staff room looking nervous and holding  _pie_. (Jack figures that probably explains the butter).

All the staff love him, and Jack likes him too, except he doesn’t really know how to break the ice or talk to him. He knows he probably seems a bit standoffish, but he just feels awkward when he talks to him so just starts to avoid him. Baking and history don’t really overlap and despite his skills on the ice he doesn’t think Eric Bittle would be overly interested in hockey. 

Except he’s _wrong_.

At the first game of the season Eric Bittle is in the stand screaming out encouragement to the team and Jack is a little taken aback by his ferocity and quite a lot more interested. (Not like he wasn’t before but he still doesn’t really know him that well and while the staff room gossip mill is working full-tilt about who and what Eric Bittle does he’s tried his best to ignore it all.)

Jack is walking to his class one day and he slows down beside Bittle’s room/office and notes the ‘safe space’ sticker on the door and he smiles to himself and then realizes he needs a sticker like that too. (He should totally use this as an ice breaker, except he doesn’t). He goes online and orders his own and quietly puts it on his office door, and another in the locker room. 

He hears things from his students, about the kind of teacher he is, and it makes him wonder what (if anything) Mr. Bittle is hearing about him. Apparently Eric is fair, funny and fucking hot. Jack added the last one himself.

Then they get stuck being chaperones for an away game, and Jack is about to give the students the hard word about curfew etc. except Bittle kind of beats him to it. Eric apologizes and explains that his dad was a football coach, and he’s been around high schoolers what feels like his entire life and Jack is 100% okay with watching Bittle chew his team out. (He is surprised that he is okay with it, because he’s fairly proprietary over his team dynamics).

They go out for dinner (with the entire hockey team at the next table) and Jack finds Eric really easy to talk to. Finds out that Eric played hockey in high school, and Jack  _thinks_  they are flirting. Maybe? Eric is offering to cook him dinner, so is that a date??? (Jack still suffers from anxiety and it’s stressing him out, but he also knows it could be really worth it).

It is DEFINITELY a date and Jack doesn’t feel stupid turning up with flowers. Eric blushes as he accepts them and puts them in a vase on the table. The food is amazing and Jack can’t believe how comfortable he feels. After dinner they make out on the sofa and then Jack says he has to go. He doesn’t want to screw this up.

They take it slow and keep their relationship away from work. It’s new and they really don’t need the gossip mill in the staff room focusing on them, and if their _students_  found out then it would be non-stop chirping.

They will deal with it though, because they’re both in it for good.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my Check Please tumblr and the AU/prompt is from bicycles-bees-bisexuals on tumblr.


End file.
